The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-05-30

Vi LIUAt lOl Nutul 0leu. fieTG
l go for God and my country" If foreign
foe should ever come all sectional animosi-
ties would be obiiterated. Here 90 our
regiments into the battle side by side, Fif-
teenth New York Volunteers, Tenth Ala
hama Cavalry, Fourteenth Pennsylvania
Riflemen, Tenth Massachusetts Artillery.
Seventh South Carolina Sharpshooters. |
have no faith in the cry: mo North, no
South, no East, no West" Let all four
sections keep their peculiarities and their
preferences, each doing its own work and
not interfering with each other; each of the
four carrying its part in the great harmony
the bass, the alto, the tenor, the soprano
in the grand march of the Union.
l congratulate you, the officers and soldiers
of this national encampment, that if a for
eign attack should at any time be made, you
would be ready, and there would be millions
of the drilled mon of North and South, like
the men of my first text, which could keep
rank, and like the men OF my second text,
that would not miss q hair-breadth
At this national drill, when thirty-one
States of the Union are representa-, and
between the decorations Of the graves Of the
Southern dead, which took place few days
ago, and the decorations Of the graves of
the Northern dead, which shall talk, place
tomorrow, | would stir the Christian pa
triotism and gratitude not only of this SOL
diery here present, but of all the people, by
putting before them the difference between
these times, when the soldiers of all sections
meet in peace, and the times when they met
in contest Contrast the feeling of sectional
bitterness in 1862 with the feeling of sectional
unity i'll 1887. AT the first date the South
had banished the national air, ''The Star
Spangled Banner" and the North had
banished the popular air Of "Way Down
South in Dixie" The Northern
people were ''mudsills' and the Southern
people were 'white trash" The more South
ern people were killed In battle the better
the North liked it, The more Northern peo-
pie were killed in battle the better the South
liked it. For four years the head of Abra-
ham Lincoln or jefferson Davis would have
been worth a million dollars if delivered on
either side the line. No need now, standing
in our pulpits and platforms, of saying that
the North and South did not hate each
other. To estimate how very dearly they
loved each other, count up the bombshells
that were hurled and the carbines that were
loaded; and the cavalry horses that were
mounted, North and South, facing each
other, all armed, in the attempt to kill. The
two sections not only marshaled all their
earthly hoStilities, but tried to reach up and
get hold of the sword of heaven, and the
prayer of the Northern and Southern
pulpits gave more information to the
heavens about the best mode of settling this
trouble than was ever used. For four years
both sides tried to get hold of the Lords
thunderbolts, but could not quite reach
them. At the breaking out of the war we
had not for months heard OF my dear uncle,
Samuel j. Talmage, President of the Ogle-
thorpe University, in Georgia. He was
about the grandest man | ever knew, and as
good as good could be. The first we heard
of him was his opening prayer in the Con-
federate Congress in Richmond, which was
reported in the New York papers, which
prayer if answered would, to say the least,
have left all his Northern relatives i'll very
uncomfortable circumstances. The ministry
at the North prayed one way, and the min
istry at the South prayed the other way.
No use in hiding the fact that the North and
the South cursed each other with a wither-
ing and all-consuming curse.
Beside that antipathy of war time place
the complete accord of this time. Not long
ago a meeting in New York was held to
raise money to build home at Richmond
for crippled Confederate soldiers, the meet
ing presided over by a man who lost an arm
and leg in fighting on the Northern side,
and the leg not lost so hurt that it does not
amount TO much The Cotton Exhibition
held not long ago at Atlanta, was attended
by tens of thousands of Northern people,
Hlld DY Geu. GoutIUldu, WHO HtsS kI6GDtl
with kindness, as though they had never
seen him before At the New Orleans Ex-
hibition, held two years ago, every North
ern State was represented. A thousand fold
kindlier feeling after the war than before
the war. No more use of gunpowder in this
country, except for rife practice, or Fourth
of July pyrotechnics, or shot at a roebucb
in the Adirondacks Brigader Generals in
the Southern Confederacy making their for
tunes as lawyers in the Northern cities. Rivers
of Georgia, Alabama and North Carolina
turning mills Of New England capitalists
The old lions of war-Fort Sumter, and
Moultrie, and Lafayette, and Pickens and
Hamilton, sound asleep on their iron paws,
and instead of raising money to keep enc
mics out of our New York harbor, raising
money for the Bartholdi Statue on Bedloe's
Island, figure of Liberty with uplifted torch
to light the way TO all who want to come in.
Instead Of war antipathies, when you could
not cross the line between the contestants
without fighting your way with keen steel,
or getting through by passes carefully scru-
tinfzed at every step by bayonets, you need
only railroad ticket from New York to
Charleston or New Orleans 10 go clear
through, and there is no use for any weapon
sharper or stronger than steel pen. Since
the years of time began their roll, has there
ever been in about two decades such an
overmastering antithesis as between the war
time Of complete bitterness, and this time of
complete sympathyt
Contrast also the domestic life of those
times with the domestic life of these times.
Many Of you were either leaving home or
far away from it, communicating by uncer-
tain letter. What a morning that was
when you left home Father and mother
crying, sisters crying, you smiling outside
but crying inside. Everybody nervous and
excited. Boys of the blue and gray whether
you started from the banks Of the Hudson,
or the Savannah, or the Androscoggin, don't
you remember the scenes at the front door,
at the rail car window, on the steamboat
landiugl The huzza could not drown out
the suppressed sadness. Don't you remem-
Der those charges 60 write home often, and
take good care of yourSelf, be good boys,
and the good-by kiss which they thought,
might be forever Then the home sickness
as you paced the river bank on q starlight
night on picket duty, and the sly tears which
you wiped of when you heard a group
at the camp fire singing the plantation
song about the old folks at home. The din
ner of hardtack on Thanksgiving day, and
the Christmas without any presents, and the
long nights In the hospital 20 different from
the sickness when you we're at home with
mother and sister at the bedside and the
clock in the hall giving the exact moment
for the medicine: and that forced march
and your wounds ached. and more than all
your heart ached. Homesickness which had
in it suffocation and a pang worse than
death. You never got hardened as guards
man in the Crimean war, who heaTtiessly Y
xx-f.1fla homo n his r,,othar.